embrace the new seasons in our lives. There is a season to gain, a season to lose; a season for peace, a season for war; a season to laugh, a season to mourn, and to betray. As for me, I long for change,” she added in a whisper. “I will soon be sent to a better place—my real home.”
“Home.” I thought of the home once glowing in my mind, an echo from a dream, now a gaunt shell. “Where is that?”
Our conversation halted when footsteps crunched over the dirt yard. Sunh?i leapt to her feet and peeked out of the door. Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight as she looked over her shoulder at me. “Eomeoni has returned.”
* * *
I joined Sunh?i outside the servants’ quarter and saw Lady Kang standing in the courtyard, her back to us. The moon illuminated the silk dress that flowed down from her waist, glowing like the underside of a seashell, and the long pin that secured her braided coil twinkled. She stared up at the three-horned peaks of Mount Samgak, a jagged silhouette protruding into the sky.
“‘Gosan,’ they called the traitor’s son,” she said. “I sensed it from the start that his ending would not be good. He accumulated too much hatred.” Then she looked sideways, only enough for me to catch a glimpse of her cheekbone, so sharp my finger would likely bleed if I touched it. “You have made a mountain fall. Inspector Han is under arrest.”
I had somehow expected Inspector Han to escape with his cunning. He was supposed to be invincible.
“After speaking with an acquaintance of mine,” Lady Kang continued, “I visited the bureau and I learned that he is being detained in his office until the end of the inquisition, after which he will be placed under house arrest.”
Sunh?i must have sensed that something was wrong with me, for she placed a hand on my shoulder. “What is the evidence against him?” she asked her mother.
“His uniform covered in dried blood, a gisaeng, and a maid—as well as an officer. This officer was kneeling in the courtyard, and in a loud voice, he said he would not refuse to die ten thousand times for the crime he had committed, and even asked to be punished with execution tools.”
“What crime did he commit?” Sunh?i asked.
“He gave false witness.”
I only managed to whisper, so quietly that I could barely hear myself, “Was his name Shim?”
“That was his name. Shim Jaedeok. He confessed that at around dawn, after the murder, he had received a message from Madam Yeonok, begging him to come quickly to the House of Bright Flowers. He arrived and found Inspector Han half-conscious, and he kept saying, ‘She is dead.’”
I bowed my head. This was the same testimony given to me by Maid Misu.
“Shim offered to be Inspector Han’s alibi—not only out of loyalty, but because he genuinely believed Han’s account to be true. The account was that Inspector Han had a few drinks, for it was the anniversary of his father’s execution. A little after midnight, he rode toward the South Gate—his father was executed there.”
I closed my eyes, feeling my heart pound against my chest. Inspector Han had left the House at around midnight. This was so close to the hour of Lady O’s murder.
“That is when Inspector Han discovered the body of Lady O. He was intoxicated, and thus he claimed he’d mistaken Lady O for his dead mother.”
A memory crept into my mind and lingered, as fine as mist, of Older Brother climbing down a cliff, a rope around his waist. He reached down to touch Mother. Crabs scattered from a pile of splintered bones and flesh. Had this moment stamped itself permanently on his mind, making him see Mother when it was another woman?
Lady Kang placed her hand over her throat to steady her voice. “When he discovered the victim, she was dead. What could have followed next? No one seems to know, and Inspector Han claimed he could not recall the following hours. Shim believed this, for the inspector has an illness … seizures sometimes triggered by blood and the sight of murdered women, which had been suppressed over the years. It was under control until that night. Perhaps it was the alcohol.”
“Inspector Han, afraid of death?” Sunh?i said. “It cannot be.”
I frowned, concentrating on a sensation in my chest that coiled into a tight, painful knot. A memory that made me say, “It is true.”